College football notebook - November 11, 2000

An innocent remark by Don Nehlen is all you need to know about coaching at West Virginia.

"In my last report on recruits, the only state in America that had less high school football players sign Division I contracts was Maine," he said. "And we don't play them."

Almost heaven, maybe; recruiting heaven, never.

The 64-year-old Nehlen is calling it a career after 21 seasons in Morgantown, W.Va., the town that drove Bobby Bowden out in the mid-1970s after students hanged him in effigy. Last season, a small plane flew over Mountaineer Field carrying a sign calling for Nehlen's resignation.

When Nehlen retires at the end of the season, college football will lose one of its classier coaches, a guy who should be honored rather than hurried out the door.

Many will remember Nehlen's teams for embarrassing bowl losses after completing perfect regular seasons in 1988 and 1993; or his current eight-bowl losing streak. But he's had only four losing seasons, coached his teams to 12 bowl games, and his program has never been in trouble with the NCAA.

For a coach with one of the toughest recruiting sells in the East, if not the country, Nehlen's record he entered Saturday's game at Rutgers looking for career win No. 200 is truly amazing. It is worthy of renaming Mountaineer Field to Nehlen Stadium.

"He doesn't have a lot of players in his own state, so he's always going somewhere else," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said. "That makes it tough to compete. Yet he's played for a national championship, gone to all those bowl games, made a commitment, and got his players to play hard.

"This is one of those deals where people won't realize how important he was to West Virginia until he's gone. He did one of the great jobs in college coaching."

As soon as Nehlen announced his retirement moments after last week's gut-wrenching, final-seconds 31-27 loss to Syracuse, talk turned to his successor.

Rich Rodriguez, Clemson's offensive coordinator who played at West Virginia under Nehlen, is a top prospect. Other candidates include Terry Bowden, Bobby's son who played at West Virginia; current assistant Steve Dunlap, in his 17th season at WVU; and N.C. State assistant Doc Holliday, who spent 17 seasons with Nehlen before moving the Wolfpack this year.

Nehlen, who took a 146-92-4 mark at WVU into the Rutgers game, will have a strong say in picking a replacement. And he wants the new coach to be part of the West Virginia family, not someone looking for a steppingstone school.

"We can't run a coach in and out of here every four years because we'll end up at the bottom," said Nehlen, who now gets to spend more time with his wife, Merry Ann, his children and grandchildren. "This is a place where you have to build relationships with high school coaches, so when there's a gem out there, you get a shot at him. Right now, our staff has lots of friends out there."

Nehlen is also leaving the new coach with a solid nucleus for 2001.

"We have only three seniors on defense," Nehlen said, "and one of my goals was to be able to walk out of here knowing we would be very competitive. I think we'll be pretty good next year, but I don't want to put a monkey on anyone's back. We have to be realistic about things here."

Which is exactly why Nehlen is leaving now.

"I've worked here 21 years, 85 hours a week and tried to keep this going," he said. "It's time for a younger guy to take over."

EXPANSION, BCS STYLE: The Bowl Championship Series added the Mid-American and Western Athletic conferences as nonvoting members this week. Other nonvoting members include Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference.

The four conferences, whose league champions do not go to a BCS game, are only allowed to participate at meetings. BCS chairman John Swofford said: "We believe the commonality of the group will serve us well in future discussions regarding ... postseason football, the marketing of the game and legislative matter that may impact the sport."

The six full-fledged BCS conferences ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC send their league champion to four BCS bowls the Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and Rose. The deal with ABC lasts through the 2005 season.

"The easiest way to explain it is the WAC and the Mid-American are now being treated the same as Conference USA and Mountain West within the BCS structure," WAC commissioner Karl Benson said. "The four conferences are nonvoting members but will participate in the meetings."

EXTRA POINTS: Finalists for the Butkus Award given to the nation's top linebacker: Keith Adams of Clemson, Rocky Calmus of Oklahoma and Dan Morgan of Miami. The winner will be announced Dec. 8. ... Texas Tech RB Ricky Williams, a Heisman Trophy prospect in 1999 before a knee injury knocked him out for the season, is likely to receive a medical redshirt to play in 2001. Williams, who leads the pass-happy Red Raiders with 390 yards this season, says he has yet to return to full strength after injuring his left knee. ... Here's a nice bowl possibility Virginia Tech and Michael Vick vs. Clemson and Woodrow Dantzler in the Gator Bowl, a matchup of two Heisman contenders whose stock plummeted due to injuries. ... Last season, Hawaii went 9-4 under first-year coach June Jones after completing the biggest one-year turnaround in NCAA history (0-11 in '98). The Warriors were 1-7 before Saturday's game against Nevada. ... Entering Saturday's game against Army, Louisville WR Arnold Jackson needed seven catches to break Nevada's Trevor Insley's Division I-A career receptions record of 298.